A-Rod and Boras are both dirt-bags. I knew this with Boras, and mostly knew it with A-Rod, but I will say that the way this was done was surprising. The only thing that makes sense is if Boras already knows he has a deal in hand that will dwarf what the Yankees were offering.
Here’s an interesting New Yorker article about Boras:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/29/071029fa_fact_mcgrath
All that said – A-Rod was a symbol for me these past two years, ever since his series against the Angels. He represented statistical analysis versus such things as ‘clutch’, ‘grit’, and David Eckstein. I view the world in a rather Darwinian, fend-for-yourself, big-fish-eat-little-fish kind of way. For me, A-Rod was the epitome of that – his skill set was better than pretty much everyone else’s, and because of that, and not because of his character, the Yankees won about 25-30 more games these past 4 years than they would have had he gone to the Red Sox in 2004. To be frank, though I do think he’s ‘classless’, and that he’s a bit of a prima donna, I never cared about any of that.
They wouldn’t have made the playoffs in 2005 or 2007 without him. Red Sox fans never would’ve experienced the euphoria of beating the Yankees in 2004 if not for him – the Yankees wouldn’t have gotten past the Twins.
I will miss 54 HRs and a .355 EqA. I will not miss the scrutiny and over-magnification of everything the man does. And, as a Yankees fan, it’s tough to expect anyone to take me seriously if I complain about losing the game’s best player via free agency.
Words like ‘traitor’ and ‘backstabbing’ don’t go very far on a team featuring Jason Giambi, Mike Mussina, Johnny Damon and Bobby Abreu, all of whom were heroes for the people who rooted for the teams they came from. After the way New York treated A-Rod last year, those Yankee fans deserve this.
Go get that paper A-Rod.
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